


But if I know you, I know what you'll do

by hopefor46



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, Sleeping Beauty Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-07 14:58:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16410659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopefor46/pseuds/hopefor46
Summary: “I’m not anybody.”“To me you are.”“And you’re a prince.”“I’m just Lovett. To you.”A prince falls asleep. A prince becomes a hero.





	But if I know you, I know what you'll do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laceblade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laceblade/gifts).



> Remix of “Due to Crisis” by laceblade
> 
> There is one non-consensual moment based on the AU source material (it’s what you’re thinking).

I. 

For a long time, Tommy never suspected his aunts weren’t really his aunts. 

Growing up in the little cottage in the woods, they were more than enough. Aunt Kara taught him lessons and brought him book after book when she didn’t know the answers. Aunt Erin showed him what plants in the forest were edible let him help her cook till his pies were good enough to sell. And when Aunt Tanya came home from the village market, she explained the various treatments she’d made and sold that day and their various effects. 

It was what he knew and summer and winter, Aunt Kara and Aunt Erin and Aunt Tanya were always there. 

As he got older, they gave him more chores and asked for his opinion on the matters of the house, and he was proud to be useful. But they also added to his lessons in strange ways. Aunt Tanya taught him the courtly manners using a book with a knight on the cover, and Tommy felt they were silly but he didn’t mind. Aunt Erin taught him to wield a sword and fire an arrow dead into the center of a target at a hundred paces. Aunt Kara plied him with biographies of famous kings in far-off places he would mark on a map, always mindful of the smudge that was them. 

“I think I’d like to go there,” he said once after finishing a very satisfying historic tome about ancient Greece. 

Aunt Kara stiffened but tried to smile. 

“We’ll see, Tommy.” 

Even though he was older, it sometimes felt like they were keeping a closer eye on him than ever. 

Tommy used to be allowed to go to the village with Aunt Tanya from time to time, but those visits had ceased soon after his nineteenth birthday. Tommy still remembered the over-bright sun of that day, when Aunt Tanya had given him leave to walk around the market while she haggled with an older man looking for a ‘marital’ treatment. A crowd was gathering around a small black tent, where a man in a stiff black hat paced and shouted. 

“Come see the fearsome spindle, breaker of dynasties!” The crowd murmured around him. 

_ “It’s been decades since I—” _

_ “I hear old witches everywhere still—” _

_ “Whatever became of the boy who—” _

The man in the top hat pulled off the black cloth with a flourish, and everyone gasped. Tommy was befuddled. It looked like a plain wooden machine, with a wheel turned over a sort of bench, and a spike on one side. What was it for? 

An older woman next to him, her face half cloaked, whispered: “Youuu are not old enough to remember, but once we had in every house.” Tommy turned to her in consternation, then back to the device. For some reason he couldn’t stop looking at it.  

“Go ahead,” she urged. “Closer.” 

Tommy started forward, tracing the line of the wheel with his eyes. He felt if he could just get close enough, maybe to touch—then he might know... 

“TOMMY!” Aunt Tanya was pushing through the crowd. “There you are. I thought you’d gone home!” She jerked him roughly by the arm back through the waiting throng. 

“But I never—” He would never leave without her. Why would she think that?    
“I need your help with the marketing. Now.” Tommy noticed she was breathing hard, her collar out of place. 

“Aunt Tanya, is everything all right?” 

She closed her eyes and let out a long breath. “Of course. Only glad I found you. It’s crowded in town today.” 

But that night, when they thought he was asleep, his aunts conferred over the kitchen table. 

“Can you imagine. The nerve of that man to truck it through the countryside like it was some kind of circus slideshow. He should be jailed.”

“You think anybody suspected?” 

“P’raps not… I definitely overreacted, though.” 

“Tan, any of us would. What a fucking daymare.” 

“Remember the rumor that the prophesied one was actually a girl, and that’s why she had to be kept out of sight? And that’s why it was the spinning wheels?” 

“Unsuitable to rule? These misogynist pigs.” 

“Kara, we’ve gotten this far. Let’s try not to get the pitchforks called on us until we’ve fulfilled our duty.” 

“She’s right, you know.”

“Did he ask about it?” 

“I think he was just startled. Soon enough we’ll have to tell him.” 

Tommy didn’t get much sleep that night. 

  
  


Of course in Aunt Kara’s books he’d encountered families that were very different from his own. When he was little she’d smoothed his hair and said, “Parents are the people who made you. We are the ones who raise you.” And that had been enough. 

But lately, it wasn’t. He knew from his biology lessons that there had to have been at least a father out there. Was one of his aunts really his mother? He didn’t really resemble any of them, with his fair hair and easily flushed skin. 

If his parents were out there somewhere, Tommy thought he would like to get to know them. But he had never been beyond the village, and all he knew was from books. They rarely got visitors at their house in the forest—folks knew to find Aunt Tanya at the market, except for the direst emergencies—and those passing through rarely took the time to speak to Tommy. 

For the first time in his life, the small house in the woods felt crowded with stories untold. 

Between lessons and pies, Tommy often found himself out in the forest. Now that the full flush of spring had opened the leaves and made the world over, he could run through the paths as familiar to him as the veins on the back of his hand. Or bring a book and sit on a rock next to the river. Or practice pitching stones across a glade. 

But mostly he thought to himself without conclusion, “I wish,” without ever finishing the sentence. 

Aunt Erin had encouraged him to keep a diary, but for some reason the habit never took. Instead he found himself voicing his feelings out loud to the empty expanse of the woods. Sometimes he lowered his voice when he spotted a rabbit or a hawk, as if the animals weren’t to be privy to his innermost thoughts. They carried on, treating him like other wildlife, which somehow only made him lonelier. 

On one such day he was lying on his back in the new grass, looking up at the clouds.

“What is it of the world that I don’t know?” he said out loud. “I only know what’s in my books. I want to see things, but how will I know what to see if I don’t know what I’m looking for?” He’d had enough philosophy under Aunt Kara to know these questions weren’t meaningless, but they still didn’t quite fit. 

“I want to know the world! And love, and mystery, and everything!” 

That, of course, was when he saw the man fall out of the tree. 

 

II. 

Tommy immediately jumped to his feet, but the man was already struggling to his feet, dusting himself off. 

Before Tommy could hurry over, worried that the stranger was injured, he called “I’m fine!” as if irritated to be disturbed. 

As Tommy got closer, he realized he had misjudged: The stranger was not a wizened old man, as he’d first looked from afar, but as green as he was. It was so rare to see anyone in the woods, let alone someone his own age, that Tommy felt a thrum of curiosity along with his caution. 

“Hello?” he called, gently. “Who passes?” 

“I—” The stranger turned to look at him, and the full beam of his brown eyes made Tommy feel strange and warm. “My apologies. I was passing through, I thought to climb this tree as I had long ago, and I found myself not as  _ adept _ as I once was.” 

“You remembered the tree?”

“Of course. My pa—I had seen it when it was only a sapling, and now look at it.” 

“Ah. You dwell nearby, then?” 

“Not quite.” The stranger looked at his feet. He seemed hesitant to tell Tommy anything, which made Tommy want to know more. “But I passed through many times, with my father, and betimes alone.” 

“I see.” Tommy tried to consider his words carefully. “I—would not be so observant, if I had lived here all my life and never seen you.”

The stranger put out his hand. “Lovett. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” 

“Tommy,” he said, struck by the curious custom of shaking hands but accepting that maybe that was just the way they did it in another province. 

“A lovely glade you have here. Hope I haven’t interrupted you.”

“Oh no! I was just—” Tommy searched his brain for a reasonable explanation, finding none, “taking a break from my studies.” 

“Ah, so you’re a scholar!” 

“Suppose I am.” 

“Tell me what you are studying.” 

At first Tommy had thought the stranger would bolt, but instead he sat down in the fragrant grass under the tree and motioned Tommy to follow. After so many hours alone, the sound of his own voice was strange to him, but Lovett looked at him with consideration, asking questions and sometimes arguing with him when he deemed a particular field not worthy of study. The afternoon slipped away as if in a dream. 

It was, in fact, in the middle of an argument about Aeschylus that Lovett jumped to his feet. “Oh lord! I forgot about my horse. I must take Pundit to water and make sure she’s fed.” 

“Is it in the tree?” Tommy said stupidly before he could stop himself. Lovett threw back his head and laughed so hard he started to weep. 

“She loves me, but not for all the kingdom--” He wiped his eyes. When he laughed he looked even younger. He smiled at Tommy so broadly he forgot to be nervous for a minute. “Come with me to fetch her.” 

Pundit’s tail went slack as soon as she saw her owner, and she pushed her nose into Lovett’s hand. Lovett whispered in her ear and climbed onto her easily, as if they had done it a thousand times before. 

“Well farewell then,” Tommy said to rid them of the silence that ensued. 

Lovett squinted at him. “It’s the strangest thing,” he said to Tommy. “I could’ve sworn we’d met before.” 

“Oh no,” Tommy said easily, “I’d remember.”

“So. Tomorrow then?” Tommy still didn’t know ought of the man who had interrupted his afternoon, except that he was well-read, frequently witty and had chestnut curls to rival Pundit’s glossy coat. Which was to say, he wanted to see him tomorrow. 

“Tomorrow. Of course.” 

“I shall endeavor,” Lovett called as he rode, “not to fall out of a tree this time.” 

_ I’m glad you did _ , he thought but did not say. 

Tommy was so quiet at dinner that night that Aunt Erin asked if he had a fever. 

“Only thinking,” he said. He bowed his head and missed his aunts exchanging glances over him. 

 

III. 

As he promised, Lovett returned every day, riding around with Pundit until he found Tommy in the forest. Often they strolled and Tommy showed Lovett some of the landmarks he’d named, seeking to find whether Lovett remembered them from his travels. A few times Lovett tried to teach Tommy to ride Pundit, who was a gentle horse despite her overwhelming desire to eat everything green in the forest. Once he took Lovett into the low garden, although he was sure his aunts wouldn’t approve, and told him how to pick out which tomatoes were ripe and which needed to sit a while longer. 

On a particularly hot day, Tommy compelled Lovett to strip down to his layers and jump in the pond with him. When Lovett surfaced, Tommy noticed his chest was small but surprisingly solid, droplets of water clinging to the hair on it. He looked for what he knew was too long. Then Lovett splashed him and Tommy tried to forget about it. 

Lovett was brilliant and never failed to correct Tommy when he made an error, but about his own family he was surprisingly cagey. Tommy had long since told him about how he had been raised by his aunts, and his unconventional upbringing there in the forest. Lovett grew visibly nervous when the topic of a family came up. 

Finally one day, they were lying on their sides face to face, supposedly because that’s what the Romans did to relax. Tommy saw Lovett swallow hard and decided that his curiosity would not be slaked: 

“Is it that you’re an orphan?” 

“What?” 

“You never speak of your family. Have you none? Are you an orphan?” 

Lovett looked down and smiled. “No,” he said. “Nothing like that.” 

“I’d never met an orphan my own age,” Tommy said. “Sorry, I was only just--” 

Lovett looked up and the beam of his eyes almost knocked Tommy out with its intensity. “You truly don’t know me?” 

“I told you,” Tommy said, “I would remember the likes of you. We’re very deep in the forest.” 

“If I tell you, you mustn’t get upset.” 

“Why… all right,” Tommy promised dumbly. Lovett leaned in ever so slightly, so they were face to face. 

“I’m a prince,” he said. 

“Of course, I meet them all the time,” Tommy joked. 

“I’m not kidding,” Lovett pressed on. “I am.” Tommy tilted his head, absorbing. He had learned of the royal family that ruled this kingdom--but nothing of a prince. 

“Are you the prince of  _ this _ kingdom?” 

“No.” Lovett exhaled in what seemed like relief. “My father has a treaty with this kingdom, for the royal retreat lays over their borders. So have we passed through here for my whole life, in safety.” He looked down briefly. Could he be nervous? 

“But if you’re a prince, don’t you have…” Tommy searched for the word. “Duties?” 

Lovett laughed. “Hardly. At 18 I’m of age but yet my father lives, and thus I wait to resume my royal education at such point that he will leave the throne, or when I can be helpful to the family. Till then, I’m little missed, believe me.” 

“What about… a guard?” 

“My skill with a rapier is known in at least 2 rooms,” Lovett joked. “Self-defense is essential for the modern prince.”

“Are we yet in a modern age?” And then they were off again, and Tommy was left to puzzle out Lovett’s origins only hours later after he’d ridden off. He didn’t act like a prince. He didn’t dress like a prince. By all accounts he was carefree as Tommy, except that he had parents. And he lived somewhere else most of the time. Tommy wondered if one day he would come out to the forest and Lovett would just be gone. 

It was something that could not be borne. Tommy didn’t realize how much he was missing until this thought, which made him go all cold inside. 

  
  


Lovett had gleaned from their many days of conversation that Tommy hadn’t seen very much of the world. In fact, he often put on a ridiculous foppish accent to pretend as though he was extraordinarily worldly-wise, plucking a reading glass out of his eye and fixing it on Tommy as he explained such and so. 

There was one subject about which Tommy felt desperate to quiz him. He found his moment the day they decided to walk the trail to the waterfall. Tommy knew it was a little further than he’d normally venture away from his aunts, but he thought knowing the route, which Lovett did not, would give him courage. 

He had his window as they picked their way through the rocks in the cave leading up to the lookout underneath the waterfall. 

“Lovett. Have you ever been in love?” 

Lovett looked truly taken aback. Shame ran hot in Tommy’s cheeks. He turned away, pretending to focus on his footing. 

“I don’t think so,” Lovett said. “Have you?” 

“N-no.” Tommy considered. “I don’t know. Like as not.” 

“Shall we trade questions then?” 

“Then I must be next.” 

“I suppose you just answered me two,” Lovett said with a wink. 

“Have you ever kissed anyone?”

“Have I… are you sent here by my father to ruin me?” 

“One question, one answer,” Tommy pushed on, thankful for the dark of the cave. 

“I have,” said Lovett, “one time I did not enjoy, and one time I did. Why do you ask?” 

Tommy wanted to sink into the earth. 

“My aunts…” Tommy began. “They have never restricted my study. I know as much as one can from books. But other things, I do not.” 

“Can’t learn some things in books it seems,” Lovett mused. In the dark his lips cut a strong line against the paleness of his face. 

“How do I know when I want to kiss someone?” 

“Tommy.” 

“One question one answer.” 

Lovett gave a sad half-laugh. “If I knew, believe me, I would tell you. When I knew, it was all wrong for me.”

“How?”

“Your inattendance to the rules…” 

“Lovett.” Tommy put a hand on his shoulder and Lovett looked up at him, wary. His skin was so warm through his vest, under Tommy’s palm. 

“I think…” Tommy knew he would have to ask today, that he would never have another chance. “That I would like to kiss you.” 

“What, now?” 

“I… don’t know?” Lovett was now deeply mesmerized by his own feet. Finally he raised his eyes and looked directly at Tommy. 

“Let’s go to the lookout.” 

They kept walking in the dark, Lovett letting Tommy lead instead of taking directions from ahead.

The lookout was actually a bit of the cave with a window in it, through which one could see the rushing waters and hear their roar. Cool and damp even in the height of summer, it gave the sensation of being underwater, even though one could stand under it and come out completely dry. Tommy smiled as they reached the window and beckoned Lovett to look through. 

While Lovett looked at the waterfall, Tommy looked at Lovett. The sun shining through the lookout dappled his face, seeming to enhance his enchantment. He was…  _ beautiful _ . Once Tommy gripped onto the word, it would not leave him. 

Finally Lovett turned away from the waterfall. When he caught Tommy looking at him he smiled soft and sweet. He mouthed something but the water was too loud. 

“WHAT?” Tommy shouted, leaning clumsily into the shell of Lovett’s ear. 

“YOU STILL WANT TO?” Nervously, he nodded. 

Lovett leaned out and tilted his head up. Gently, he took hold of Tommy’s face and pulled it down to him, down, closer… 

Kissing was not at all as Tommy had imagined it. It was so brief and yet it seemed to drive him mad. It was like talking, with no words in it. He wanted it to go on forever, and when Lovett dropped his hands, Tommy very carefully lifted his to Lovett’s cheeks and pressed their mouths together again. 

When they had left the lookout and were blinking in the sun, Lovett said, “How did you find it?” 

“I’ve been many a--”

“ _ Kissing _ , Tommy.” 

Tommy smiled. “The books did it a disservice.” Lovett grinned and took his hand, and something lovely bubbled up in Tommy’s throat. 

 

IV.

When Tommy rode home that day he thought that might be the end of it. But it wasn’t. And a world he’d never known existed opened to him. 

He had felt the comfort of his Aunt Tanya wrapping her arms around him as a boy when he was sad or lonely. But it was altogether different when Lovett snaked an arm around his waist as they sat in a tree overlooking the meadow, pulling himself snug against Tommy, so that he felt every finger on Lovett’s hand. 

He had learned to whisper from Aunt Erin when they were on a wildlife watch, to see a deer shepherd her fauns over the meadow. But when Lovett whispered in his ear, he felt it all the way down to his toes. 

And the first time Lovett backed him into a tree in the grove, where the branches were so thick what little light filtering through was green, and said “Has anyone ever brought you off before? I’d like to try,” Tommy felt he might faint, that his legs might give out, unmannerly. Which he feared until the first time Lovett saw him lying down and crawled on top of him, pressing into him, rocking their hips together as they both moaned. 

Now when he pondered the world, he automatically added Lovett to his journeys. Lovett to read the maps and recommend destinations. Lovett to teach him how to move through the world of men and stay close, stay guarded. Lovett to whom he could tell everything.  

Except this, apparently. When Tommy tried to say it, his words sounded so inadequate. 

“Listen,” he said one day while they were dangling their feet into the pond, trying to stay cool. 

“At your service,” Lovett quipped, and Tommy automatically reached over and ruffled his hair. 

“You know I haven’t seen ought of the world,” Tommy said. 

“It’s not so—”

“...but I want to see it with you,” he finished. 

“You haven’t even heard how I snore.” 

“Yes I have. You fell asleep in the grove the other day.”  _ After _ , Tommy thought but did not say,  _ I reached into your trousers and felt you against my palm, hot and slick and urgent, how you shuddered next to me. I was so nervous and the sound you made was unearthly, like a wailing, and I can never forget it now.  _

“It was but a catnap!” Lovett lowered his chin and looked up through his eyelashes. “I was satiated.” In that moment Tommy couldn’t believe he had gone almost 20 years of his life without knowing how it felt to desire and be desired. It made him feel dizzy. 

“That’s what I want.” Tommy tilted his head, serious. “If you’ll have me.” 

“Is that what you want for your birthday?” 

He remembered, Tommy thought with a shock. 

“‘Cause I, ah, had something different in mind,” Lovett said smiling. “But you’ll have to wait and see what it is in two sleeps’ time.” 

“Two sleeps? Why?” 

“I won’t be able to see you tomorrow.” The smile slipped from Lovett’s face briefly. “But in two sleeps we will again.” 

  
  


Tommy could barely wait, but he tried. Regrettably, his aunts had taken an unusual interest in the completion of his chores in the past few days. 

“You look feverish,” Aunt Tanya said, laying her wrist across his forehead. 

“I’m fine.” 

“Have you truly finished all the books I had laid out for you this year?” Aunt Kara wanted to know. 

“Mostly,” Tommy said, though in truth he had skipped a few of the dustier-looking ones, after letting Lovett read a few pages aloud until they both fell over laughing. Lovett’s scholar’s voice would make a skeleton chuckle. 

“What have you been up to recently out in the forest?” Aunt Erin suddenly asked over dinner one night, her eyes boring into Tommy’s soul. 

He shrugged, trying to look casual. “It’s summer.” 

The morning of his birthday, he thought he’d figured out the source of their nerves: Sitting down at the breakfast table, he found himself presented with a cake and a handsome leather satchel. 

“Twenty years old!” Aunt Erin said. “Now you’re a man, you need a proper traveling bag, for when you decide to see the world.” Surely it must be a coincidence, Tommy thought, that a gift would fall into his life the same way that Lovett did. It was almost as if Aunt Erin could read his mind. 

“I’ve packed it with a variety of remedies that one may need on the road,” promised Aunt Tanya. 

“As well as a new volume of Marco Polo’s travel journals.” It was the first book Tommy had ever owned that looked as new. 

“The pages yet uncut?!” Tommy kissed each of his aunt’s cheeks in turn and sat down to eat his cake. So content he was with his breakfast that he missed the wistful look that traveled between them, the single tear that escaped Aunt Tanya’s eye. 

“I will take my bag into the forest today,” he announced. He couldn’t wait to show it to Lovett, and to see what his other present was. 

“Good idea,” Aunt Erin said, but her voice seemed throttled. 

“Do be careful, Tommy,” Aunt Kara said. 

“Remember what we taught you,” said Aunt Tanya. 

As he walked, light of step, everything in the woods bowing and swaying in the breeze, Tommy truly felt as though he was on the verge of a new life. Perhaps there had been something to this birthday nonsense. His aunts had always told him it was an important age. 

But where was Lovett? The meadow was empty, the forest stirring only with the calls and chases of the animals. 

“Lovett?... Lovett?” Hearing a commotion, Tommy startled to see a full carriage rolling down the forest path, barely narrow enough to fit, with four white horses towing it. He’d seen carriages in town before, but never this far out in the wilderness. 

He jumped aside quickly to let it pass, knowing it would not stop, when to his shock it  _ did _ stop right in front of him. Was this the surprise Lovett had planned? 

The carriage door swung open. Tommy peeked inside, but instead of Lovett, two very tall men unfolded themselves from inside.

“Tommy?” the beefier one asked. 

“Yes, how did you—” 

Then a cloth was pressed over his face and everything went black. 

  
V. 

Prince Lovett had made a career of avoiding what he ought to do, but never before had he come this close to admitting it. 

He paced outside his father’s study carefully contemplating the pattern in the stones that made up this floor of the castle, planed to excellence and polished to a dazzle. 

In a way, it was fitting that everything else about his life had been easy and now, at 18, he was on the verge of making it difficult for himself on purpose. In  _ that _ , the prince had had much experience. 

Of course he knew, abstractly, about the reason he hadn’t yet been pressed into royal duty. He knew about the alliances that the country had to maintain in order to guard against its enemies. How he had been raised for a life of service, not of contemplation of leisure. All this he had imbibed as surely as the mead he quaffed with last night’s dinner. But none of it had truly sunk in until another path appeared for him to take. 

Granted, if Lovett had inclined at an early age towards a life as a scholar or a monk, perhaps additional arrangements would have been made.  _ Contingencies _ . But as it was, he was the only son of his father, his mother having died in childbirth years ago. So he was the one who was meant to carry on the royal line by doing--well, what his father commanded. 

Lovett imagined himself chastising his father for not having more foresight and smothered a giggle. It had been romantically known, in the kingdom, that the king never got over the loss of his queen and would not marry again. It was a relief to a younger Lovett that no stepsiblings would imminently arrive to pester him. He’d read those fairy tales, too. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so hasty either. 

The heavy stone door swung open and a clutch of advisors scampered out. Lovett went inside his father’s study with, he had to admit, more trepidation than usual. 

The King barely looked up as Lovett came through the door. He probably recognized Lovett’s footsteps. 

“My son, what is it?” 

Lovett expelled a heavy breath. “My king, I seek your permission.” 

At that the King’s head shot up, eyebrows first. “What for?” 

“To… about… the alliance.” 

“My son.” The King was twirling his quill between his fingers, but he reluctantly set it down. “How old are you?”

“Eight and ten, sire.” 

“You know what your calling is to this country, do you not?” 

“I know.” 

“You know you have been raised into this, yes?”

“Yes, Sire, but--”

“Have you _ met someone _ ?” 

“I--yes.” There was no space to get into it with his father. 

“Is there  _ trouble _ ?” 

Lovett blinked. “No?” It took him ten solid seconds to divine what his father had meant. 

“Then you will not see that  _ someone _ and you assign your time more wisely to preparing for your royal alliance.” The King turned away to the pile of scrolls on his desk. 

“Sire, I--”

“Lovett.” He couldn’t remember the last time his father had said his name. “Your marriage will cement an age of peace.” 

“I--”

“You have been promised to this alliance to anchor the prosperity of two nations. Is that understood?”

Lovett swallowed hard. In his mind’s eye he pictured Tommy, pacing in the meadow, waiting for him. Swimming in the pond alone, startling at every noise, thinking it was Lovett. Day after day, until the snows came. What Tommy’s face might look like when he realized that Lovett was never coming. If he would cry, or do worse. 

And he pictured himself in the castle, looking out the window every day. 

Suddenly, he looked up to find his father staring. His eyes were filled with a familiar scorn. 

“It isn’t so bad, doing your duty,” he said. 

“Yes, father.” But the King’s attention had already been diverted elsewhere.

  
  


Lovett knew what he must do, even if he could not bring himself to say it. 

He packed his saddlebags quickly, with only a moment to contemplate his overflowing trunk, the desk where he had spent many happy hours learning. As was habitual, he preferred his homespun over his finery, so as to be mistaken for someone other than who he was. The crown he never enjoyed wearing anyway and only dusted off for ceremonials. The stuff of such a life he had been raised around, with nothing to show for it in the end. He tried to remember it, in case he was never allowed back. 

What price the treason of a prince? 

“I must off to give Pundit her exercise,” he called to the guardsmen at the gate, who barely noticed him anyway. 

Pundit seemed confused about the timing of the ride, as normally he rode out to see Tommy as early as possible, but she easily bent to his will, no doubt thinking of extra sugar cubes and carrots waiting. 

They rode hard and took the usual way. Lovett dismounted in the meadow, trying to draw in a full breath. 

“Tommy!” he called. “Tommy!” 

It was later than usual, but he could feel something was wrong. The woodland animals gave up their usual calls. Pundit drummed one foot on the ground, impatient. 

With a lurch, Lovett started to second-guess his decision to run out of the castle. 

It was Tommy’s birthday and he’d already ruined everything by being late. Now he was going to ruin it again by telling him they had to… what? Go on the run together? What  _ was _ his plan? 

Now it was Lovett who looked like the foolish one.

But no, Tommy would never leave him alone, without fail. Something must have happened. 

He realized he could feel tears burning the sides of his eyes. He closed his eyes and tries to empty his thoughts. Breathe in deeply.

Lovett leaned back against Pundit’s haunches and tried to collect himself. A flicker of movement in the forest caught his eye. A woman. 

“Who goest?” he called, even though he was the interloper. She started to walk towards him without saying a word. 

Even though it was full August, she was wearing a black cloak. When she got closer he saw she was younger than she seemed. Her eyes glittered underneath her hood, red lips, a strange feline expression. 

“You came for Tommy.” 

Lovett was so taken aback, he forgot to lie and nodded furiously. 

“At the castle.” 

“Sorry?” 

“They have taken him. He is at the castle. You must go.” She pointed with a slim white wrist emerging out of the cloak. 

Lovett narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?” 

“Be warned, there is danger.”

“Are you one of his aunts?” 

“I am,” she allowed with a narrow nod. 

“ _ How _ do you know all this?!” 

She laughed. 

“Do you believe in magic, prince?” 

Lovett stared at her, bewildered. He looked down at his clothes, wondering which article had given him away. When he looked up again her eyes danced, mirthful. 

“I could see that you were coming,” she said. “I have seen it for a long time.” 

“That’s im--” 

“I need not to ask that you will be good to him,” she says. “I already know that you will.” 

“Are you saying you--” 

“You should hurry,” she cut in. “There is some danger. But you must do it.” She swept off into the forest, hood up. 

Nothing about his royal lessons had prepared him for this moment. 

  
VI. 

Lovett pressed forward into the woods, still mostly unsure of where he was going. Pundit sensed this but obeyed his commands. 

In the direction the aunt had pointed lay a path that gradually widened into a road. He nodded absently at other travelers along the road, trying to focus his thoughts on what lay ahead but finding himself pulled back further and further. 

To Tommy. Tommy lolling on the grass with sun glinting off his hair. Tommy lifting him up into a tree, his strong hands gripping Lovett’s waist, grazing his neck on the way up. Tommy startled, wondering, looking at Lovett with awe. 

Tommy—with a wicked grin, and then leaning back in open-mouthed laughter; then, Tommy afraid, someone hitting Tommy, Tommy shouting in pain.

He couldn’t parse the woman’s meaning, except to be certain Tommy did not mean to leave him, that he must have been kidnapped. 

But what would anyone want with Tommy? 

None of it made sense. 

Lovett stifled a rueful laugh when he discovered that, for all of Tommy’s desires to know the world, he lived only an hour’s ride from the village at the foot of the castle. This time of day, the marketing and the trade were slowing down, and villagers huddled in groups or hurried home. 

He had to admit this country had a nice castle—it even looked rather familiar—but something was off about it. This time of day, the flags should be out, smoke should be rising from its kitchens, lanterns started to be lit. Was nobody home? 

Pundit pressed on over the first bridge they came to, but the portcullis was slammed shut and the guards… Lovett looked down over Pundit’s neck in disbelief. The guards appeared to be  _ sleeping. _

“Hark!” he called in a tone of voice he hoped was stern. “Hark, you there!” straightening his shoulders like his father taught him. Nothing. They slumped back against the stone walls as if dead. Lovett thought about dismounting to look closer, but feared they had been struck by some kind of disease where they stood. 

Instead, he steered Pundit around the moat looking for an open portcullis they could ride through. Finding one, and encountering the same level of opposition from the guards (none, asleep), he rode through. Pundit looked back at him as if she knew what they were doing was wrong. 

“I know, girl,” he said. “I don’t know either.” 

They rode into a silence so thick it felt like a fog. Everyone Lovett passed was sleeping, often in the strangest of positions. Some of them  _ resembled _ Tommy, but none of them  _ were _ him. A strange odor pervaded the place. 

Reluctantly, Lovett tied Pundit up in the kitchen and decided to take the rest on foot. She whined until Lovett fed her two lumps of sugar and rubbed her mane for good luck. 

The kitchen fire had gone cold, but the air was thick with smoke. Lovett tried to follow it with his nose, through the maze-like stone hallways. At last, he reached the great hall, which was set for a banquet, but the guests were all asleep in their food. Lovett hugged the wall to keep his back to it, circling them.  _ What had happened here? _ It was even smokier inside. 

He could feel the stone floor shaking under him. Was the castle possessed? The booming resolved into the sound of steps, terrible, loud steps. Lovett flattened himself into the corner next to the stairs, but not fast enough. 

Into the great hall thundered a giant Russian dragon, black as fury, with smoke coming out of its nostrils. It was easily three times Lovett’s height, with a tail that could knock him out. Its horrible yellow eyes cast about the room and zeroed in on Lovett. Of  _ course.  _

So Lovett did the only thing he could think of. He ran straight up.

The dragon gave chase, though slowed slightly by the narrowness of the stairs. Lovett scampered up to the gangway overlooking the great hall and tried to catch his breath. 

Lovett breathed a word of thanks to the ancestry that made him small enough to hide behind the parapets, knowing that the Russian dragon was fast after him. Nervously he watched as it raised its head to the height of the castle where he was sitting, its giant yellow eye getting closer and closer. 

Summoning years of seemingly useless swordfighting lessons, Lovett assembled himself into a crouch, threw one arm back and waited. When the yellow eye slid between the stone pillars closest to him, he stabbed with all his might straight into it. 

With a deafening howl the dragon dropped its head and slumped onto the stone steps below. 

Lovett raised his head from the stones to goggle at it. He  allowed himself to feel euphoric even through the fugue of exhaustion that seemed to be hanging around him. Just for a moment, while he was alone. Then, out of breath and feeling the hot prickle from his burned legs, he skittered along the parapets and up the spiral staircase to the castle’s ultimate tower, hoping for a place to collect himself. If the dragon left Tommy here—if he was left alive—

The door stuck momentarily till Lovett put his shoulder to it, grunting at the weight. The room at the top was smaller than he expected, and dwarfed by an enormous bed, on which lay… Tommy, pale and waxen, stiller than Lovett had ever seen him. Sleeping as deeply as anyone else in the castle. Or… dead? 

Even though Tommy seemed at no danger of stirring, Lovett crept closer. Nothing about the scene made sense. Why was Tommy wearing a crown? Where were his plain woodsman’s clothes, his homespun, the henley he always wore snug against his collarbone? Who had laid him in this bed? 

If this castle is his tomb,  will everything always be this quiet and sad?

Lovett found himself standing at the foot of Tommy’s bed, looking down at him. He was so still and looked even younger than he did in the forest, his curls laid out against his smooth forehead.  _ Beautiful _ , was the word that popped into Lovett’s head unbidden. 

Before he knew what he was doing, he knelt in front of Tommy. 

He remembered the golden afternoon Tommy had insisted that they lie down in a meadow that cropped up very suddenly out of the trees.

They had lain on their backs for what felt like hours, Tommy naming the shapes of the clouds, pointing out the oddest ones. It must have been the day Lovett tied up Pundit and they went running through the forest to get there, finally falling softly in the fragrant grass. Tommy’s enthusiasm was infectious, he was like a schoolboy, Lovett thought, but didn’t say for fear Tommy would hate it. 

At first, Lovett followed where he was pointing, deep into the blue sky, but soon he flipped over on his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows so he could look at Tommy. At  _ only _ Tommy. 

When Tommy noticed he acted indignant—“Hey! You’re not looking!”—but Lovett couldn’t tear his eyes away. Soon Tommy lowered his eyes from the clouds and a lovely blush spread over his cheeks. 

“Jon,” he said. “What is it?” 

Lovett had inched closer on his elbows. None of his courtly love books had prepared him for this particular scenario. Perhaps the monks hadn’t copied this part.  

“May I,” he started, looking into Tommy’s eyes. “I—I’d like to kiss you again.” 

Tommy’s blush deepened. He looked away and mumbled something. 

“What?” Tommy shook his head. Nausea bubbled up in Lovett’s stomach. Had he asked too much? He’d thought that Tommy wanted to, that day under the waterfall. But maybe he’d read the situation entirely wrong. Lovett slumped over on his back and blinked up at the sky. 

“Don’t know how,” Tommy said quietly. 

“Mmmm?”

Tommy rolled over onto his side. Lovett followed suit. They were close, a sweet torture. Tommy looked down and  _ hah! _ -ed quietly under his breath. 

“Never—kissed anyone before.” 

“None of the swains in the village were found adequate?” 

“No.” Tommy still wasn’t looking at him. “No one ever tried.” 

Lovett found his hand in the grass, and was gratified that Tommy gave it. 

“I would never—take advantages,” he said unsteadily. “But if you want to—” He dragged Tommy’s hand up to his lips and kissed the back of it, noting each freckle. “Then I want to.” 

Tommy finally looked at him again. “My parents—”

“Don’t care,” Lovett said, shaking his head vigorously. 

“I’m not anybody.” 

“To me you are.” 

“And you’re a prince.” 

“I’m just Lovett. To you.”  

Hope and nervousness mingled in Tommy’s eyes. He leaned in until they were nearly nose to nose. “Will you? Kiss me?” 

Lovett was happy to take the entry. 

It hadn’t been his imagination. Tommy’s lips were impossibly soft, his skin warm. Up this close he smelled like pine needles and soap and sweat. Breathing it in made Lovett dizzy. He didn’t want to move too fast, but he wanted to try everything. Do everything. Things that no prince would admit to wanting. When he took hold of Tommy’s jaw and pulled it in, wanting to deepen the kiss a little more, Tommy groaned and it reverberated all the way down to Lovett’s toes. 

Lovett broke the kiss only long enough to gently push Tommy back onto the ground and, poking his head up, to survey the field around them. 

“Are we... “ Tommy faltered. “We should move.” 

“I’ll follow your lead,” Lovett said with a grin. 

  
  


Now in the castle Lovett could hear his pulse in his ears. He felt one tear, then another escape his eyes, and despite all his good breeding he let them. It was unbearable to think that the forest would go on, the meadow would grow high and lush and then dry and brown in the fall, without Tommy in it. Without Tommy to see him. That Lovett would never see him alive again. 

“So, I don’t really know what to do here,” he began, hating the way his voice cracked.  He reached out for Tommy’s lapel—just to finger the fabric, and then let his hand drop away suddenly, as if it weren’t allowed.  “I must just speak from my heart.” He sounded like an idiot. Surely, if his parents ever accepted him back to court, it would not be to rule. 

“I never expected to find you in the forest. I was only trying to run away, like I—like I’d done my whole life. Meeting you I found the one thing I could be sure about.

“I couldn’t find the words then, but every day we met was the happiest day of my life. I—” He swallowed heavily. “I love you, Tommy.” 

His words seemed to hang in the air over them like a spell. Abruptly, Lovett thought back to the day Tommy had taken him to the waterfall, dragged him underneath its cool spray. The way his blue eyes had glinted in the semidarkness, and without thinking it through, Lovett had reached up to cradle his face in his hands. How he had brought their mouths together, so quickly, then Tommy giggled and led him out of the cave by the hand, Lovett holding on longer than was certainly necessary, trying to stay in that moment forever. 

That time, and every other time. 

Lovett knew he would have to walk out the door and resume a dutiful life, as if none of this had ever happened. If he wrote it all down and buried the manuscript, perhaps in three hundred years someone would understand it. But this would be the last time he could ever say those words aloud. 

Impulsively he leaned over and stroked Tommy’s cheek. And when he did that, he couldn’t stop himself from leaning in one last time and pressing his mouth to Tommy’s. It was only his imagination that made his lips feel warm and alive under Lovett’s one final time, just like when they began, when Tommy kissed him like Lovett might break apart. 

He pulled away gently to look at Tommy, just a minute longer. To memorize the curve of his beautiful mouth, as it—but wait—his lips  _ were _ parting, and suddenly he didn’t look as pale, and—

Tommy opened his eyes. 

Instinctively Lovett drew back, in fear and shame and  _ confusion _ . Was it truly him, or some kind of enchantment? Had he fallen under the same spell? 

“Lovett,” he breathed. 

Lovett could feel panic crawling up his spine. 

“Tommy, is it you?” 

Tommy blinked, gorgeously, as if stirring from a long nap. 

Should he leave Tommy alone? Would Tommy even want to see him after he missed their tryst in the forest? It felt like something was stuck in his throat. Finding no other option, he only had the truth. 

“I thought you were dead!” 

Tommy smiled gently but mirth flashed in his eyes. “You came looking for me.” 

“I—”

“Lovett, did you kiss me?” 

Lovett felt cold and prickly all over. He took a step back. “My—I’m sorry.” 

“Right now, did you kiss me?” 

“Well, I… you see… I didn’t mean to...” 

“You broke the spell.”

“ _ What _ ?” 

“Lovett, it’s true!” Tommy attempted to sit up with a grimace, but settled for propping himself up on one elbow.  _ The crown would really accentuate his blue eyes _ , Lovett thought irrelevantly. 

“What’s true?”  

“The spell,” Tommy said, “that I was under since I was a baby.” 

He wasn’t making much sense, but Lovett vaguely remembered something his courtly affairs tutor had been buzzing about… 

“Wait.  _ That _ ’s real?” Lovett always thought it was a courtly legend. “Y _ ou’re _ the princess?” 

“Not quite.” His eyes were full of wonder. “As you know.” 

“But Tommy, I thought you were—” For once, Lovett was at a loss for words. _Dead? Run away for good? A commoner?_ Seeing him right in front of him, but not close enough to touch, made Lovett feel like his skin was on fire.

“They said only true love’s kiss could break the spell. So it  _ was _ you.” Tommy beamed at him so hard Lovett forgot what he was supposed to be doing and leaned in to kiss him again. He grabbed the crown off Tommy’s head and tossed it on the bed so he could run his fingers through his hair again, feeling the way Tommy shivered under his hands, the back of his sweet neck. Tommy’s lips parted easily under his, inviting him in, tangling his tongue with Lovett’s until Lovett moaned and pressed himself to the side of the bed. 

When he finally came up for air, Tommy was murmuring in his ear, “Never dreamed it could be you, but I wanted it to be, I really did.”

“But in the forest—”

Tommy closed his eyes briefly, his eyelashes fluttery and gold. “I was going to tell you. That day we—”

“Tommy, I’m so sorry, I wish—”

“I didn’t want to scare you! What if you were just—”

“A passing knight intending to rob you of your virtue? Oh Tommy, that  _ can _ be arranged.” 

“But you felt it, too,” Tommy said, the familiar wrinkle crimping up in his forehead. “Didn’t you?” 

Lovett considered. 

“That day under the waterfall—” he started. Tommy nodded knowingly. “Nothing was the same after that.” 

“It really is true,” Tommy breathed. 

“What do we—do?” Lovett felt dizzy with the possibilities. If he and Tommy were meant to be together, then their parents couldn’t stand in their way—and their kingdoms must unite, and—Tommy’s gentle kiss interrupted his racing thoughts. 

“Slow down, my world traveler,” he said. “I meant not of the geopolitical realm.” Tommy sat up again, this time more definitively. Lovett moved away as he swung his legs out, tried to use the bed to hoist himself up but couldn’t help wincing as he went. 

Tommy studied him curiously. 

“Are you hurt?”

“Well, I didn’t want to tell you, but there was this dragon—” Tommy turned to him and Lovett allowed himself to lean into him heavily, in relief and secret delight about all the places where they were touching. 

 

VII.

For a ceremonial funereal pyre Tommy’s bed proved surprisingly spacious and soft, Lovett thought as he clambered to his knees and slowly sank down over him so they were chest to chest, Lovett resting his elbows on Tommy’s collarbone so he could look into his eyes. 

“So you’re a prince, Tommy,” he said softly. 

Tommy was smiling as he shook his head in disbelief. 

“It’s not that hard,” Lovett joked, himself submerged in the sense that nothing was real. Tommy was dead. Tommy was alive. Tommy was in the castle. He was Tommy’s… 

“What are we going to do?” A flash passed over Tommy’s face. “In history there was never known a kingdom of--”

“Princes ruling together? Not in recent history. Perhaps in the--”

“They’ll be looking for us by and by.” 

“...It’s likely,” Lovett allowed as he scooted up to cradle Tommy’s face in his hands, kiss him properly,  _ awake _ . Tommy’s mouth fell open under him.  _ Yes _ . 

“Wait, wait,” Tommy said with a hand on his chest. “What if they think someone is still coming for me?” 

“Like a… princess?” 

“You know my marksmanship lessons were at the hand of a woman. And I’ve bested you  _ easily _ .” Tommy made a feeble attempt to sit up, couldn’t, but frowned attentively at Lovett. “Can’t you take me somewhere?” 

“I can try,” Lovett said. “I’m a little bit unstable,” he said, as he sat back so that Tommy could sit up, feeling a pang in his side. 

“What about that place you stayed in the forest? When you would come to see me?”

Tommy was so obviously smarter than him that it made Lovett anxious. He would never get a bead on him. “True, my father won’t be looking for me there, at least until hunting season. And  _ your _ father won’t either. Are you sure you can move right now? You look quite pale.”

“I’ll manage. If we can take Pundit.” 

“But you’re a prince. Do you not want to stay in your castle, Prince? Get to know your kingdom?” 

Tommy imitated Lovett’s look up at him as he reached out to grab Lovett’s forearms. “Prince Lovett, please take me away and do what you want with me. After all, I never got my birthday present.” 

Lovett looked down and laughed to himself. He had been planning to take Tommy there. Fate had mocked him then and probably still did, in a way. 

Maybe another day Tommy would figure out that there were men enough and women enough in the kingdom who would be a better match. But, how could he turn this down? 

“You’ll have to ride behind me,” he said as he flopped off the bed. “Know any good secret passages out of here? But we have to stop in the kitchen first.”

“The kitchen?” 

  
  
  


As they rode Tommy told him about the carriage and the fanfare that greeted him, shocking and too-loud. How he met the strangers that were his parents. The curse, and the reason he grew up not knowing of his parentage. The lull that passed over the kingdom, which must have been the witch. 

Lovett tried to listen, but his thoughts kept drifting away to the arm wrapped around his waist, the slow rocking of the saddle that shifted their bodies closer and closer together, the way Tommy was pressed right up against him. The confident way Tommy handled the reins with Lovett in his arms, even though Lovett had been the one to teach him to ride. He even started to get a little sleepy himself, but he woke up with a start when Pundit paused in the meadow, then pulled along the hidden path that led to the lodge. 

“Good girl, Pundit,” he whispered. “You know where to go.” 

As they dismounted, he could see the wheels in Tommy’s head turning. 

“How I never found it--”

“It’s magic,” Lovett said. “An enchantment that seals off the path to those who aren’t meant to find it.” 

“I never thought magic was real.” 

“If the past 2 days have taught you anything,  _ Prince  _ Tommy.” 

The old wooden door swung open easily under his palm. When Tommy closed it he turned back to look at Lovett expectantly, and Lovett immediately pressed forward and into him. 

“Now where were we,” he joked, losing the thread of his thoughts as Tommy’s lips slipped from his mouth to his jaw and then down his neck, soft touches that make Lovett feel like he’s on fire. 

“Is this good?” Tommy lifted his head to look at Lovett.

“My Lord, it’s good.” He picked up Tommy’s hand and kissed it, then grabbed it and led him to the back bedroom where he’d been living all summer, where at night he would lie awake and imagine exactly this happening. 

They were still standing in the doorway when Lovett slipped his hands under Tommy’s vest and felt his soft skin. He was more dressed in his royal weeds than Lovett had ever seen him, yet he relished being able to pull each piece off until Tommy was standing in front of him bare-chested, un-trousered, and he threw his head back when Lovett pressed his lips to the side of his neck. There were so many things Lovett wanted to do to him, things he could never name, would never thought he could have. 

“Lie down and accept your present,” he said. Tommy obediently got up on the bed, almost too quickly. Lovett shed his own court clothes, kicking his riding boots under the bed, and climbed on top of him, only to wince when Tommy ran a hand up his side. 

“Can you,” Lovett said, trying for once in his life to minimize the pain he was in, “leave that. The dragon. I just--” 

“Do you want to stop?” There was real concern in Tommy’s voice. 

“Not for all the world.” He grabbed Tommy’s hand and, holding his gaze, pulled one of his fingers into his mouth. Tommy gasped, his eyes rolling back in his head, and Lovett reached down and squeezed Tommy’s cock through his breeches. 

He scratched Tommy’s chest and dragged his mouth lower,  _ slowly _ , looking up to see if Tommy was enjoying himself. Tommy squeezed his eyes closed and then opened them back wide, mouth open, desperate. He looked like a royal painting, or a mural of a saint. 

Lovett tugged Tommy’s trousers down. He was sure no one had done this to Tommy before. He wanted it to be perfect. Unfortunately, his false bravado might have suggested he know more about what he was doing than he actually did, but it was too late to correct that. 

When he took Tommy into his mouth Tommy convulsed and cried out, shaking against the mattress. Lovett dragged his tongue along the head, watching, wanting to remember what it looked like. 

“Lovett… oh…” It was beautiful to hear Tommy say his name. Lovett took him in deep, reveling in the salty taste, using his hand to stroke up. 

“I’m gonna,” Tommy gasped all too soon. “Do you. Oh Lord.” Lovett swallowed him down till he almost gagged, touching Tommy’s thigh and his hip bone, waiting until he stopped shaking before he let go. As he pulled off he looked up at Tommy, biting his lip. 

Tommy was beaming like a sunrise and he beckoned Lovett to lay next to him. 

“That was… I…”

“Shhhhh,” Lovett said, petting Tommy’s hair. His cheeks were pink and he was still panting. 

“Wait,” Tommy said. Lovett scooted up till they were sharing the pillow face to face. 

“Lovett. I’m falling in love with you.” 

“ _ What _ ?” Lovett looked down at their bodies together, trying to fix himself in this moment. 

“I know it.” He pulled Lovett’s chin up till they were staring at each other. Tommy looked determined. “I’m in love with you.” 

“You can’t just say that.” 

“Why not?” 

Lovett choked a laugh. “After pleasure… a man has his delusions.” 

Tommy’s eyes flashed and his mouth turned down. “I mean it, though.” 

“Tell me tomorrow.”

“I will,” he said as he pulled Lovett over him, let his hands wander down Lovett’s back experimentally. 

  
  


In the middle of the night Lovett sat up with a start. 

What was to happen to them now? Where would they escape to? 

They couldn’t stay here. 

His father might kill him. Or kill them both. 

Next to him, Tommy stirred, throwing a long arm over Lovett’s legs. So comfortable, like nothing could ever disturb him sleeping. 

But wait. 

If they weren’t meant to be together… 

Then what of the kiss? 

It was just a tale. Or was it? 

Lovett decided in his heart to let tomorrow’s woes take care of themselves. He burrowed down under the quilt, even though it was too hot, and pressed his face into Tommy’s shoulder, and fell asleep almost immediately. 

  
  



End file.
